Ideas And European Education Policy 1973 2020

This book analyses the transformation of European Education Policy from 1973 to 2020. In doing so, it offers a unique insight into the changes of European education from a predominantly national concern to a supranational policy framework, driven by an economic discourse concerning productivity and employability. The book shows that the idea of the “Europe of Knowledge” did not originate in the Lisbon Strategy of 2000, but rather was the result of a gradual development that started in the mid-1980s. This begun with the establishment of a specific problem definition of education as a solution for Europe’s lack of competitiveness, a definition that was incrementally constructed by the European Commission and the European business community. Highlighting significant and unexplored questions such as the role of European transnational business in education and the role of the “problem entrepreneur” in defining policy issues, this book will provide a comprehensive perspective on European Education Policy that will be of interest to all students of European Politics, Education Policy, and Public Policy.

A European Politics of Education proposes a sociology of education establishing connections between empirical data coming from European-scale comparative surveys, normative assumptions structuring actors’ representations and interpretative judgements, and a specific focus on Lifelong Learning policy areas. It invites readers to think about the place of standards, expertise and calculations in the European space from a common perspective, supported by a tradition of critical sociology and European political studies. The book: Addresses an important agenda: how the policies and politics of supranational Europe are making a European educational space Contains a response to the emergence of new epistemic governance and instruments at European level Contains contributions from the EU and the UK which give a comprehensive selection of perspectives and analysis of the field as it concerns Europe The complexity of the contemporary European education policy space is addressed here with new lines of inquiry as well as a reflexive outlook, on standardization, policy-making and actor engagement. Students and researchers of European policy studies, education policy analysts and theorists will all be particularly interested readers.

The study of common and diverse effects in the field of education across Europe is a growing field of inquiry and research. It is the result of many actions, networks and programmes over the last few decades and the development of common European education policies. Europeanizing Education describes the origins of European education policy, as it metamorphosed from cultural policy to networking support and into a space of comparison and data. The authors look at the early development and growth of research networks and agencies, and international and national collaborations. The gradual increase in the velocity and scope of education policy, practice and instruments across Europe is at the heart of the book. The European space of education, a new policy space, has been slowly coaxed into existence; governed softly and by persuasion; developed by experts and agents; and de-politicized by the use of standards and data. It has increasing momentum. It is becoming a single, commensurable space on a rising tide of indicators and benchmarks. The construction of policy spaces by the European Union makes Europe governable: policy spaces have to be mobilized by networks of actors and constructed by comparative data. They are the result of transnational flows of people, ideas and practices across European borders; the direct effects of European Union policy; and, finally, the Europeanizing effect of international institutions and globalization. The European space of education and research has become a new place of work through interconnected institutions, networks and companies, and it is being constructed through the flow of policy ideas, knowledge and practices from place to place, sector to sector, organization to organization, and across borders. This book will be useful to any scholar of the new arena of study, the European Space of Education.

International comparisons of educational achievements have come to play a crucial role in understanding the educational field today. This book provides an in-depth analysis of the development of international large-scale assessments. The lives and achievements of transnational educational experts who paved the way for these assessments are discussed as well as the rise of institutions specialising in the making and managing of educational statistics such as the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievements (IEA) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) supported by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Emerging transnational policy spaces and their effect on national education policy are also problematised using the concept of ‘Europeanisation’ as a theoretical reference. By bringing together historical and contemporary comparisons using different methodological approaches the goal of this book is to contribute to a widened understanding of educational policy-making as an open-ended and complex process that cannot be reduced to a rational process of linear implementation, or a deduction of world models of education. Instead the result of this book shows that transnational policy flows in many directions in European education today and is being negotiated, translated, interpreted or even contested when recontextualised in different national and/or local arenas. This book addresses crucial questions on how the landscape and its borders of educational knowledge and policy-making have changed over time and place and how the map is currently redrawn in the contemporary globalised educational context. It provides important navigational knowledge for students, teachers and researchers as well as policy-makers at different levels.

This book aims to provide a wide ranging analysis of the educational challenges posed by the treaty signed in Maastricht in 1992. It brings together an international group of specialists in the fields of educational theory, philosophy of education, politics of education, comparative education, and gender equal opportunities. Focusing particularly on pedagogic issues, it is essential reading for those engaged in educational research, for students of education, and for those working with European Union institutions.

The range, speed and scale of Europeanizing effects in education, and their complexity, has produced a relatively new field of study. Using scholarship and research drawn from sociology, politics and education, this book examines the rise of international and transnational policy and the flow of data and people around Europe to study Europeanizing processes and situations in education. Each chapter creates a space for policy research on European education, involving a range of disciplines to develop empirical studies about European institutions, networks and processes; the interplay between policy-makers, stakeholders, experts, and researchers; and the space between the European and the national. The volume investigates the construction of European education, exploring the consideration of the role of think tanks and consultancies, international organizations, researcher mobilities, standards, indicators of higher education, and cultural metaphor. Bringing together international contributors from a variety of disciplines across Europe, the book will be of key value to academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of education studies, politics and sociology.

This book critically reflects on the context in which lifelong learning policies and practices are organized in Europe with contributions of researchers and policy makers in the field. Through a critical lens the book reinterprets the core content of the messages that are conveyed by the European Commission in the “Memorandum for Lifelong Learning”, the most important policy document in the area, which after a decade from its publication still remains the vehicle for all current developments in lifelong learning in Europe. With references to research findings, proposed actions, and applications to immediate practice that have an added value for Europeans –but which either do not appear to correspond directly to what is stipulated by the European Commission, or are completely ignored as part of the lifelong learning process– the book offers an analytic and systematic outlook of the main challenges in creating the ‘European Area of Lifelong Learning’. In times as decisive as the ones we are going through today (both in social and economic terms), a critical perspective of the practices and policies adopted by the EU Member States is essential. The book follows the same structure as the Memorandum in order to debate and critically approach in separate sections the core issues that Europe faces today in relation to the idea of making a ‘European area of Lifelong Learning’. ​

This book grew out of the experience of a European Union Thematic Network of the same title, and focuses on aspects of the complex and varying relationships between globalisation, Europeanisation and Education. The volume is divided into two parts: PART 1: Governance and the Knowledge Economy, focuses on how the discourses of a Knowledge Economy and Lifelong Learning, and an emerging functional and scalar division of the labour of educational governance became central to the development of a European Education Space. Contributors emphasise the role of the European Commission, and especially the Lisbon agenda, in this process, and considers the role of the Open Method of Coordination and the Bologna Process in the construction of the EES. A key theme linking Europeanisation to globalisation is the prominence of the discourse of competitiveness, and the role allocated to education in enhancing Europe’s ability to compete with the United States and Japan. PART TWO: Citizenship, Identity and Language, looks at the emergence of a new social model for Europe, this time from the point of view of how it relates the development of individual capacities and citizenship, and the role of intellectuals in this process. A second major theme is the place, role and choice of languages and at the impact of pressures from globalisation and Europeanisation, and national and sub-national levels, on language choice and teaching, taking into account both ‘World Englishes’ and Language Europe. Finally, globalisation becomes the central issue in an analysis of its different relationships with ‘northern’ (of which European education policy is taken as the example) and ‘southern’ paradigms of educational development.